Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood’s Greatest Improvement

Warning: this post is 100% spoilers. If you haven’t seen both FMA series, pay very close attention to the next two lines before deciding whether to read any further.

Full Metal Alchemist (plus Movie): +++

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood: +++

FMA:B has too much to cover, so instead of reviewing the whole series, I’ll just focus on the one area of change I found most satisfying: the homunculi.

In the first Full Metal Alchemist series, you needed a remnant of the homunculus’s corpse to kill it. Good luck. We’re dealing with creatures that are potentially hundreds of years old and from potentially any part of the world. How are you supposed to track down the corpse’s precise location? What if it decayed? What if it was moved? What if someone mislabeled the grave stones? What if the skull wasn’t conveniently stored in a safe in the homunculus’s home?

Things only get more unsettling when you throw in the philosopher’s stone. In the first series, exactly what powers do the homunculi derive from the philosopher’s stones? Regenerative powers seem unlimited. Abilities unique to each homunculus, like shape-shifting or turning your skin into armor, seem unlimited in both series. All the philosopher’s stones seem to accomplish in the first series was stopping the homunculi from looking like an oozing morass of failure (except Gluttony). Furthermore, the first series has two tiers of philosopher’s stones: the real deal and grossly underpowered rejects. If the homunculi are fed with the imperfect variety, does that mean their powers are imperfect? Won’t they eventually break down on their own?

FMA:B straightens all this out with a simple rule: kill them until they’re dead. Homunculi have a finite number of lives. If you kill them, they will lose them.

Another nice thing about FMA:B is that it explains why the homunculi are named after the seven deadly sins. Sure, in the first series you could interpret an explanation through a liberal arts no-such-thing-as-a-wrong-answer approach, but I don’t swing that way.

The individual homunculi:

Gluttony: Same old.

Lust: Took the biggest hit. Definitely a more interesting character in the first series.

Sloth: Stock went down overall. Less of a MILF. Presumably spawned in a failed attempt to resurrect Maid Guy.

Pride: Looked awesome. Total disappointment in battle. Only two notable kills, and both were already dead severely wounded.

Wrath: Absolute fucking badass.

Envy: Solid as a character, weak as a fighter.

Greed: Excellent dynamic with Ling. It was just about the only thing I liked involving a Xing character.

If there’s one thing the first series did better, it was drama. The first series thrived in darkness. FMA:B’s drama was lame/cheesy/sappy more often than not. Also, I never liked that Truth guy. Props to the first series for cutting him out.

69 people love sucking up to me

No mention of how each homunculous died in ways reflective of the torment facing people who had that sin according to Dante’s Inferno, or of how the homunculous that were killed by people were killed by the ones that most embodied that sin (and Pride doesn’t die because according to Dante, ‘pride never dies’)? I am disappoint.

Wrath was unbelievably fucking awesome, though I still prefer to call him FUHRER-PRESIDENT KING BRADLEY. Envy’s last scene was my favorite scene in the show. Greed was completely awesome, especially in Ling’s body, and especially towards the end. Pride I agree looked awesome, but was miserable in battle. The fights with him were the absolute low-points in the series for me (especially the one in the god damn forest for 2 episodes).

I never finished the first series, but do you really think it was darker than Brotherhood? I mean, it was dark, but Brotherhood had someone dying or losing a limb or getting traumatized horribly like every 2 episodes. It was campy in a way, which is why I continually referred to the show as GRIMDARK, but still seems darker than the original. Then again, I only ever saw a little more than half of the original (basically up until where the plots definitively separate between the anime and the manga/brotherhood).

There were things I missed from the first series. I thought that both the Nina death and the Hughes death meant a lot more in the original series because of their being around longer. Some of the filler wasn’t terrible, and I particularly loved the first Barry the Chopper episode from the original.

But having read about what happens in the original, I don’t think I can go back and watch it, because it would just be too weird after seeing Brotherhood, whose story just felt perfect. It doesn’t help either that besides Ed and Al, every single voice was changed from the original, and I can’t handle that.

Actually, my favorite difference from the original was that Al was much more badass. The original show felt more like “The story of Edward Elric and his brother Alphonse”, whereas Brotherhood felt more like “The story of the Elric brothers”, and that was something I greatly enjoyed.

What? Dante’s Inferno? Don’t get intellectual on me. I’ll get more into the deaths in the thread with Day.

The way Pride was hyped up by the show, I thought he’d be twice the unstoppable killing machine Wrath turned out to be. He moved across the country in an instant, he had a crazy homunculus form, he could read minds, and he was the oldest, which usually means most powerful. There was no excuse for him to barely fight all his opponents to a draw.

If I had to give one reason why I felt Brotherhood wasn’t as dark as the first series, it’s that you knew everything was going to turn out ok. Mustang went blind? That won’t last long. Al met up with his body but passed up his chance to get it back? He’ll be back. You could even tell Greed and Ling would eventually be separated. I’d never count on anything like that happening in the first series.

Totally with you on Al. My older brother and I have the same approximate age gap as Ed and Al, so I’d always be rooting for Al in the back of my head. It was still very much Ed’s show, but Al held his own.

And also agree on the Al/Ed-fact. There’s a lot of thing that buggs me in the first anime version, like how Ed is so exagerrated; ultra genius, for some reason can kick everyones ass in 2 minutes, and WTF, he’s got at least two chicks in love with him!? o.O

The Sloth change was definitely kinda meh, since he just spent his whole time digging for the whole series. I liked Father’s backstory way better than the thing with Dante, too. Just seems so much better than defeating the ex-GF from hell.

Father as the final boss was my second favorite change. Although he’s a serious step up from Dante, I gave the #1 improvement spot to the homunculi because I didn’t really have any complaints about Dante when I watched the first series. The stuff about the homunculi always bothered me.

The bullshit with the homunculi’s weakness also bugged the hell out of me when I first watched the original series. It’s one of those ideas that sounds cool on paper but falls apart completely when some common sense is applied. Killing the hell out of the Homunculi is just as awesome and easy to understand.

Also agreed with Kabitzin about Dante. What a crappy final boss for what had been a pretty good story up to that point (even after veering away from the manga).

My favorite Homunculus kept switching throughout, but in the end I’d give Wrath the nod. He featured heavily in most of the best fight scenes, was a pretty menacing villain and I like the little touches of humanity he has that go in a different direction than Greed. It’s like he remembers being human and can see in which direction the world is going (I honestly don’t think he really expects Father’s plan to succeed), but he fights to protect his turf, anyway, because he loves being a Homunculus. Greed eventually thought humans were cool; Wrath was more like, “Been there, done that. Meh.” And then he kills everyone.

If there’s one thing the first series did better, it was drama. The first series thrived in darkness. FMA:B’s drama was lame/cheesy/sappy more often than not.

I soo much agree with you completely on that!
Nevertheless I like both the Fullmetal Alchemist series and its my most favorite anime of all time!
Some people dont like the Conqueror of Shamballa movie…dunno why..I liked it a lot!It was a good sequel to the anime…

And good mention about the difference between the Homunculi I like both the versions…the remnant of the homunculus’s corpse and the kill them until they’re dead one…
This show cut Lust off the story too early and that disappointed me the most!She was one of the most awesome characters of the series!
And 2003 FMA had Izumi’s child Wrath…he was a pretty cool character!
That’s compensated by the badass Olivier 😛
But Brotherhood’s ending of “All thats well… ends well” was pretty lame…I preferred 2003 series’ ending where Ed paid the price of separation from his brother to get his body back!Also it had another world in the other side of the gate which made it even more interesting!Still both the shows did very well!
Among villains…
Both Dante and Father had their pluses and minuses….so overall it was good!
And as Kabitzin said no mention of Scar O_O
Epi would curse you for no mention of Ran Fan lol 🙂
Yeah this show deserves a +++!

I don’t even consider the movie a sequel. To me, the movie is a part of the series. The series is incomplete without it.

Olivier was an excellent addition. The more Armstrong the better. One thing that bothered me though, I expected her to do better in her fight against Sloth. She beat up Alex, and Alex beat up Sloth, so she should’ve been able to put up a better fight.

I agree about the ending. The final trade didn’t seem even to me. The first series really stuck to the theme of sacrifice. Things couldn’t go back to normal. They could get their bodies back, but they still had to pay a price.

I was going to say you mispelled the word homunculus, but i did a little research and found you were right after all, sorry to doubt you Baka-Raptor.

I think this post is incomplete, so i was going to bitch about luring us into thinking it was an anime review but then i noticed it is not in the category “reviews”, sorry to doubt you again Baka-Raptor.

FMA2 is THE-BEST-ANIME-IN-THE-UNIVERSE (oh hell, how come you haven’t used that tag yet…), FMA1 is more fillersome and slower until their plot diverges. I still have to fully watch FMA1 but i’ll never be the same anymore when i hear it has more fillers, Naruto traumatized me forever…

I know why you didn’t a full review yet, it is because Wrath and Scar deserves a full page for each one of them 😉

I have to confess that I didn’t finish FMA: Brotherhood; the re-tread storylines/arcs practically gave me whiplash with how quickly they moved, which I found to be extremely off-putting, and it also just felt more like a typical shounen series than the first go-round had. I agree with you very strongly that the first series was much darker – sure FMA: B had a lot of violence, but it was violent so often and so excessively that it it just ended up feeling cartoonish after a while.

I also prefer the messier ending of the first series versus the second. Everything ties up so neatly in the second version, and I have to say I dislike that in shows if only because it just comes across as being too perfect. All the good guys are happy? Really? Come on, that’s just a little too much for me.

It still pretty much ties a ribbon on it; the good guys who survive through get neat, happy little endings. I know you’re big on anime not needing to be realistic, but I find an ending like that to be unrealistic and thus do not find it satisfying as a result.

And, for the record, I did follow the manga through to the end, so I’m not just speaking as someone wholly unaware of how the story went. Unless everyone has been over-exaggerating about the faithfulness of this adaptation.

The first third of FMA:B was painful for me too, but I can’t take off points for it. I’m sure it wouldn’t have sucked if we hadn’t seen it all the first time around.

The shounen/cartoonish fighting was certainly more pronounced at times in FMA:B, but the first series wasn’t devoid of it. Making giant hands appear out of the ground was never something I could take seriously. Smiling Father shooting a smiling gun is a whole different level, but still…

Following through on the topic of darkness, here’s basically how everything ended in FMA:B: the good guys who survived all had happy endings; the very few good guys who died all died valiantly; and the bad guys who died all died reformed, fulfilled, or having learned a valuable lesson. I like it when a series ties up all its loose ends. It’s even ok for everyone to be happy. What bothers me is the “promise” part. It ruins the excitement to be confident you’ll get a happy ending.

If I had to choose between FMA-1 and FMA:B, I’d take FMA:B’s ending. As the saying goes, the journey is more important than the destination. Even though I knew they’d all live happily ever after, it was a blast watching how it all went down. FMA-1 was great, but the holes and inconsistencies bugged me to the very end. They’re why I once referred to FMA-1 as “the best anime series I never talk about.” Something about the series just didn’t sit right with me. It wasn’t until I watched FMA:B that I was really able to pin down why.

And he’s saying that TOO much violence gets cartoonish after a while. Whole series have been made on this concept. Hellsing Ultimate for example. And I know this is two years late for a reply, but when I saw the shear amount of douchbagery in your comment I couldn’t resist. Please, I hope you’ve learned by now you have to back up your statements. If you just say “Your an idiot” and nothing else then you come off as an asshole troll. I normally never swear, but since I’ll never see this page again WHO CARES??? Fuck you you piece of shit. Goddamn you and your asshole statements. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go outside and get some fresh air.

Ugh… Sounds like FMA: B is worth watching, but the thought of going through another 50+ episode series based on the same effing premise just feel so tedious. I think that’s the biggest problem with FMA:B for me. Even if it fixed all the loopholes with homunculi and did everything even better, it’s a remake.

Well, only about the first 13 eps are the same, and they are very, very different. Also, Brotherhood didn’t really ‘fix’ anything from the first series because it isn’t really related to the first series – Brotherhood just follows the manga, whereas the old series mostly made up it’s own stuff.

But seriously, Brotherhood is amazing. It may not be one of my favorites, but I’d say it’s the 2nd most well-made anime I’ve ever seen (and definitely the best-animated TV anime)

I’s not a remake, it’s he original. The first FMA was a shitty remake with shitty dragons and Nazis and didn’t make sense at all. Brotherhood is the manga adaptation and has a lot better foreshadowing etc since those were the authors plans, which got lost in the first transfer.

Though the minus is that they rushed the first episodes till Greed because they were already handled in the first anime

To give you an idea how different FMA: B is from FMA 1: Kimbley is basically a completely different character who happens to share the same name and powers, Catherine is not the most prominant female in the Armstrong family, Scar’s brother is sane, Envy is not Ed’s half-brother, and Bradley is not Pride. Also, Barry the Chopper is hilarious, Scar is about a decade older and far less “pretty”, and Frank Archer and Dante don’t exist.

A lot of people who saw the first series agreed that the first 13 episodes of FMA:B were tedious. You could skip those episodes if you really insist. FMA:B branches out in a completely different direction from that point. It’s absolutely worth watching, as the above responders have stated. Would I lie?

Finished it, and liked it a whole lot. If I weren’t the mecha fan that I am I’d like it better than Eureka SeveN. I wouldn’t be interested in watching the previous series, but for your mentioning how much darker it is.

Digiboy sold this to me as Grimdark, and it doesn’t feel like that at all. It was sappy and corny in its drama — which are not necessarily complaints from me. But if I was demanding Grimdark I’d be disappointed.

Glad you’ve liked what you’ve seen so far from SDFM. I think what sets that show apart from others is the whole bit AFTER the big battle. Nobody did aftermath like that show, sappy love triangle and dumbass Hikaru notwithstanding.

Definitely agree that the original FMA series did drama so much better than FMA:B, but in almost every other respect FMA:B is better. I still love the original anime, I thought it was an excellent series (although Dante was a disappointment in the end) and I actually quite liked the movie too; but FMA:B stole the show – it was just awesome.

I liked how the first series attempted to stretch beyond the limits of the shounen genre. Beating the snot out of your enemies is good and all, but I think a conflict on the scale of civil war should require a little more political savvy. Also Ed was forced to kill Greed in the first FMA while the notion of “heroic purity” in Brotherhood didn’t jive with me. I also liked the nature of the homunculi in the first; being creations of those who attempted human transmutation resonated with the theme that choices have severe consequences. However, the overall plot of Brotherhood was better and the buildup to the Last Day was pretty great.

I tend to lump theme in with drama. You know, all that sissy stuff. So what I meant to say above is that I liked theme/drama better in FMA 1.0.

The herioc purity of FMA:B was lame. So lame. I got dizzy from rolling my eyes when everyone went back to stop Mustang from killing Envy. You’re rushing to save the world from destruction, but it’s ok to take a little detour to lecture your ally to stop that symbolic final kill of an enemy he’s already sort of killed dozens of times. Give me a fucking break.

A wise man once said, “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you.” I knew nothing of the manga until 2008. Regardless of which was the original, the first anime by default became the measuring stick by which I judged all other FMA works.

Argh, most of the comments here reek with the usual “the original will always be better” attitude. Put me in the camp of preferring the original series. As someone else said, it tied a ribbon on at the end too neatly. The beginning had too much whiplash, which also ruins any chances of it being a worthy adaptation of the source material regardless. Also, I’m annoyed about the sudden “oh, nothing to do now but wait until next spring for the final battle!” That’s usually the point in the show where the characters try to get stronger and such, right? Like Al could have learned alkhestry, and the other characters could have come up with plans against the homunculi instead of just going in blind. In the end, it just felt like a random waste of time, as most of the preparations made by the main characters could have been done in a single month rather than three.

Everybody had something to get pissed off at. The whiplash and ribbon had contradictory goals. The whiplash was to please wide-eyed new viewers while the ribbon was to please disillusioned old viewers. I remember this teenage girl and her mother running this FMA panel at a convention I attended a while back. For the whole hour they kept whining about how Winry was all alone at the end of FMA-1. Those losers. Now they got their ribbon.

The three months of uselessness disappointed me as well, and the disappointment was spread out over the 15 something episodes of the Promised Day. I kept thinking they’d save the fruits of their training for the next episode. Gave up around the time Father built his mini-sun.

Things I did after reading this post.
Read the line about Wrath. Google ‘Wrath full metal alchemist.’GOOGLE WRATH AGAIN TO MAKE SURE THIS IS THE PERSON BAKA-RAPTOR WAS TALKING ABOUT. Find a badass with a mustache the second time instead of some 10 year old boy who looks like a girl. Scold myself for even thinking about losing an ounce of respect for Baka-raptor.

Yeah, I thought Envy had some of the best development among the homunculi but it was definitely a shitty fighter. Somehow, even though it was a grotesque monster made out of perpetually suffering souls for a lot of the show, its fight scenes were not even close to the most interesting. What the fuck?

On another note, there is such little lesbian potential in the new fall season. Instead we get a bunch of shitty shows about incest and how cute little sisters are. Thoughts?

Envy’s fighting was a huge disappointment coming off the first series. I recall him being one of the strongest back then. Somehow being a giant soul dog softened him up.

I don’t bother looking at season preview charts. As far as I’m concerned, anime doesn’t exist until it’s subtitled. Anyone who blogs about season previews is a loser (unless they do it in flowchart format). If I need something new to watch, I don’t mind going old school. A wise man once said, “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you.”

While I was satisfied with the plot holes about the nature of the homunculi closed up, their back stories and values as characters were in many cases unchanged or worse off. Greed and Wrath were the only unequivocal improvements.

Just like Pride, Sloth was never used to his full potential. He never used any of the following attacks:

I blame my hectic work schedule for not allowing me to catch up on my blogs/blogging this summer.

Anyway it must be because I saw the entire original FMA during my exam period or maybe it was because it was 6 years ago or something… but I’ve always remembered the original as kind of a ‘bright rosy’ kind of feeling story. Everyone keeps talking about how ‘dark’ it is, but I guess I just didn’t think it was dark compared to the other shows I was watching at that time (whatever it was, it was so long ago I forget what else I was watching).

In fact I always felt the original FMA was a bit ‘cartoony’ in a way. Sure I was sad as hell when Alex Louis died, or when Roy bit the bullet, but I never felt the same kind of tension I did when Father recreated the king of Xerxes for instance, or the sheer thrill when Pride was introduced for the first time with his creepy Risa feel-up. I just felt that FMA:B did a ton of a lot of things better.

Oh and it had a hell of a lot less filler too.

For me FMA was a pretty good but forgettable series with an awful ending, while FMA:B was a pantheon-level show.

I do agree with Lust getting nerfed though 🙁 Although Kikuko Inoue was a ridiculously awesome choice of seiyuu.

you know just from reading all the comments i’m noticing quite a few similarities between FMA:B and the original manga (which i have indeed read from start to finish and here is where i read it http://www.anymanga.com/full-metal-alchemist/001/001/)
like the Lust dieing scene and pride sucking so epicly man the guy was a wimp make things a little dark and hes just a kid and they sic a lion chimera on him he’d be like over killed if he hadn’t eaten gluttony which i find ironic Gluttony was never killed till he died he was eaten and what did he do the ENTIRE series? eat.

I love FMA and anything to do with it. Brotherhood is epic and you can’t stop watching it. I Love the new characters that you didn’t get to meet in the first FMA, Like Ling. Brotherhood seems darker to me and funnier aswell but the first FMA still rocks and nothing will beat Roy Mustang’s mini skirt quote. I love how in Brotherhood Roy is alot darker and more serious, Just love him. I don’t respect Envy as much as i did in the 1st FMA, He’s more of a wimp in brotherhood. I can’t wait for the rest of Brotherhood to come out in Emglish!

Fai D Fluorite, Forget about discussing which SERIES was Better, The FMA: Brotherhood Trax don’t even compare to the 1st FMA. I’d like for one person to tell me an FMA:B Track that’s even equal to L’Arc-en-ciel, Cool Joke, or Yellow Gen…. it would actually be aprreciated

To sum up my opinions:
1.The artwork is much better in the first series
2. …But the plot just doesn’t make sense
3.Brotherhood don’t completely follow the manga, they’ve taken out some parts that I really liked TwT May be that it’s small parts but in any series, and especially in a masterpiece like FMA, the details are important.
4.The manga’s the real deal. It’s just epic.

No offense, but that actually made them worse in my mind. In the first series, the humunculi were indeed made by human transmutation. Now think about how they were in the first series. They weren’t just mindless peons who did whatever father told them to, they had memories of who they were in their human life. They actually had reasons for what they did, they wanted to be human, they wanted to regain their previous selves. This made them more human, more relatable, and in the end, when one died, it actually had an impact. In brotherhood, they were, in the end, like Biggs and Wedge from Final Fantasy, mainly people who we know, but really aren’t that important in the end. I mean hell, father was the worse villain of them all (he was a generic “I want to take over the world to make it a better place” one of which you see time and again. Dante, just as bland as father, at least had reasons for it, her fear of aging, her fear of death). Now someone who has never read the manga, Brotherhood had to stand up to the original, and fell flat on it’s face. 1) The first 15 episodes were rushed, now for someone who has never watched the first series, you’d need to be invested within the first 15 episodes, if not, that’s bad story telling, and would make most people give up after 5 episodes (and that’s if they were really giving it a shot). 2) with the original, when I found out Bradly was a humunculus, I was shocked, because unlike Brotherhood where he came off as a dictator, in the original, he was a father figure, a nice man who we gernally could compare to our grandfather. That’s again, good story telling when it can shock you and tug at your emotions. 3) Sloth, in brotherhood was nothing more then a meat shield who wanted to sleep. In the original, Sloth was the Elrics mother, who was indifferent, someone who didn’t want to find love, who didn’t care. That’s another sign of slothfulness, and to see the boy’s reaction to that is pretty heart renching. Now, Envy and Greed are good in both, and one of the few things I do like about Brotherhood is Greed. But to find out Envy was the first son of Hoenheim was amazing.

Now, what makes a good compelling story, a good series. Good writing is when you feel invested in what the characters do. You feel what the characters feel, your emotions change with the series. I mean think about every story that everyone talks about, those stories are stories everyone get’s invested in, to where our emotions get manipulated by the series/story/characters. Brotherhood didn’t have that at all, it was a generic Shonen with a dull villain that had no sympathy to be had, and each episode was ruined by the horrid pacing. I mean each episode had a horrible comic funny moment that didn’t fit. In the original, they had funny moments, but knew when to be serious to which even if there was a funny moment, the pacing fit. Then the ending, now most people bitch about it being a bitter sweet ending, but honestly, that’s what made FMA so great, because even it’s ending is bittersweet, and takes it’s audience seriously to show the realities of life that we won’t always get our way, that we must make the best of it.

You’re clearly wearing rose tinted glasses. How humconli are made in the original series is so flawed. Where truly meant to believe that those are the only humconli around when there made off human transmuation? Unbelieveable in the slightest. And the as for as the humconlus there self go please. Envy was just a psyshopath with daddy issues, Wrath was annoying squirt, and the others we’re pratically the same. And Dante is just a ripoff of oricimaru, Father had a much detailed ack story annd history than the ciche we use to be lover that Dante had. Add that with the fact that Dante herself went out so lamely by being eaten by a fat slop.Oh such a compelling villian.

Brotherhood does have to stand to the original and the orignal is the Manga not the first anime you saw when you we’re a child. Even more proof of you wearing rose tinted glasses.

There also the fact that Manga/Brotherhood handle there characters far better the first series butccher tons of characters so badly it was sickening. And the ending was terrible not because it was bittersweet but because it was flatout terrible. They pulled that real world nonsense out of there ass BIG TIME.

So no you’re clearly biased and just cling on to 2003 because it your childhood rather than watching it logically.